Why is it that kissing someone in the rain is universally acknowledged as romantic? Why is holding hands at sunset considered to be more beautiful than doing it at any other point in time? Why is it dubbed ‘caring’ when someone hands you their jacket, only to be miserably cold themselves? Why is it always 2am that makes us think about someone? Why is seeing each other in your dreams deemed better or more heartfelt than seeing each other for real?
I would rather not get horrible wet hair sitting in between all the places we should be touching. The cold and wet would just make the kiss all wrong, rain running down our faces and sticking our eyelashes together. But I don’t want the rain to do it. It has no place to think it can do what we could do too, with nothing but the resonance of synced heartbeats. I’d rather kiss your warm and lazy lips awake and know they are still able to move with mine, even when the brain behind it was still but barely conscious. I liked knowing that kissing me was almost an instinct.
I’d rather be opening a bottle of wine at sunset, and only have our bodies touch through sipping from it’s neck right after the other’s lips had kissed it, or through the accidental brush of fingers over and under each other when we would pass it along. I’d rather let our souls entwine than our hands. We’d establish that by talking nonsense till the sun went down, sitting completely independently so we left room for our smoky breaths to dance with each other in the middle. I’d rather have you warm than for you to give me your jacket, because when I curl into your chest I want to be able to melt into your bones, like butter in a pan, and vaporise. I’d rather think of you as I take my coffee at 4pm, or when I see the sun come up onto a building in the morning, its perfection reminding me of your face. I’d rather not sit up at 2am, awake and lonely, and be obligated to think of you because the world is dark in the absence of alternatives. I’d rather have you right beside me than dream of you. Because it is the imperfection of reality I crave. I want the bits of your cheeks that you didn’t shave properly, because you were lazy or you were afraid you’d cut yourself since your hands were shaking with the thought of meeting me. I want the lines that start at the corners of your eyes because you spent your early mornings thinking about me and trying to squeeze your eyes together, hoping you’d juice my image out of them. I would rather have you with your hair in your face and the scars on your back than the way you appear in my dreams. I can never quite recollect the way your veins feel under my fingertips or the way your muscles move under my nails when I’m dreaming, all imperfect. I say we revolt against romance, and we create moments that will put it to shame for feeling superior to everyday life. Give me reality. Give me imperfection. Give me life.